I don't know how you can say that $250,000 a year is "middle income". I would have a hard time figuring out what to do with anything above $100K in my present way of living. Secondly, if $250,000 a year is middle income, why are people freaking out about teachers making $80,000? That's low, low middle income, surely they deserve more? Finally, the median income is somewhere around $45,000 per year. I find it hard to assert, with a straight face, that "middle income" is more than five times the median.

skullkrusher:Philip Francis Queeg: skullkrusher: Cuthbert Allgood: ignatius_crumbcake: This morning Romney defined 'middle income' as people making between $200k and $250k. Way to go, Mittens.

Shut up! Seriously??

//please be true

Ambiguous and doesn't include the actual quote but this is the story

Here's the exact quote:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Is $100,000 middle income?

MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less. So number one, don't reduce- or excuse me, don't raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don't reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today. That's principle one, principle two. Principle three is create incentives for growth, make it easier for businesses to start and to add jobs. And finally, simplify the code, make it easier for people to pay their taxes than the way they have to now.

lots of websites are gonna have to run a correction

Defining "middle Income" as anything less than the top 1.5% is farking stupid.

Huh? Can someone draw a graph and show what that range is? I have no farking idea what he meant. So is $0 dollar income still "middle class"?

Didn't say middle class; he said middle income. $100,000 (more than twice the median national household income) doesn't fall in the middle range of incomes, so the cutoff point between middle income and low income is somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000. Makes sense, right?

Derp. farkING HTML OKAY.Even if we assume that his "and less" doesn't mean 200k < middle class < 250k, 100k is apparently not middle class. Giving him the benefit of the doubt its still 101k < middle class < 250k which is pants on head retarded.

Huh? Can someone draw a graph and show what that range is? I have no farking idea what he meant. So is $0 dollar income still "middle class"?

He was asked if 100k was middle income and he said 'No'. He then said it was from between 200k-250k and less.

So using that data we can determine that Mittens thinks that middle class is more than 100k, but less than 200-250k. I would call that the upper middle class. Professionals, higher management, and sales managers make this kind of money.

Philip Francis Queeg:skullkrusher: Cuthbert Allgood: ignatius_crumbcake: This morning Romney defined 'middle income' as people making between $200k and $250k. Way to go, Mittens.

Shut up! Seriously??

//please be true

Ambiguous and doesn't include the actual quote but this is the story

Here's the exact quote:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Is $100,000 middle income?

MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less. So number one, don't reduce- or excuse me, don't raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don't reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today. That's principle one, principle two. Principle three is create incentives for growth, make it easier for businesses to start and to add jobs. And finally, simplify the code, make it easier for people to pay their taxes than the way they have to now.

I encourage people to watch the video. The "middle income" bit is nothing compared to how he's treating the embassy's statement in Egypt still.

theorellior:I don't know how you can say that $250,000 a year is "middle income". I would have a hard time figuring out what to do with anything above $100K in my present way of living. Secondly, if $250,000 a year is middle income, why are people freaking out about teachers making $80,000? That's low, low middle income, surely they deserve more? Finally, the median income is somewhere around $45,000 per year. I find it hard to assert, with a straight face, that "middle income" is more than five times the median.

I think this may have been one of the rare cases when Romney's brain caught up to him before he finished the sentence.

"Middle income is $200,000 to $250,000..." wait, I can't say that! "...and less."

Cuthbert Allgood:ignatius_crumbcake: This morning Romney defined 'middle income' as people making between $200k and $250k. Way to go, Mittens.

Shut up! Seriously??

//please be true

MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less. So number one, don't reduce- or excuse me, don't raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don't reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today. That's principle one, principle two. Principle three is create incentives for growth, make it easier for businesses to start and to add jobs. And finally, simplify the code, make it easier for people to pay their taxes than the way they have to now.

MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less. So number one, don't reduce- or excuse me, don't raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don't reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today. That's principle one, principle two. Principle three is create incentives for growth, make it easier for businesses to start and to add jobs. And finally, simplify the code, make it easier for people to pay their taxes than the way they have to now.

lots of websites are gonna have to run a correction

Defining "middle Income" as anything less than the top 1.5% is farking stupid.

so is paraphrasing what he said as "The Republican presidential nominee defined it as income of $200,000 to $250,000 a year."

qorkfiend:theorellior: I don't know how you can say that $250,000 a year is "middle income". I would have a hard time figuring out what to do with anything above $100K in my present way of living. Secondly, if $250,000 a year is middle income, why are people freaking out about teachers making $80,000? That's low, low middle income, surely they deserve more? Finally, the median income is somewhere around $45,000 per year. I find it hard to assert, with a straight face, that "middle income" is more than five times the median.

I think this may have been one of the rare cases when Romney's brain caught up to him before he finished the sentence.

"Middle income is $200,000 to $250,000..." wait, I can't say that! "...and less."

I thought he was agreeing with BO's $200/250k line of private jet demarcation :)

Huh? Can someone draw a graph and show what that range is? I have no farking idea what he meant. So is $0 dollar income still "middle class"?

Didn't say middle class; he said middle income. $100,000 (more than twice the median national household income) doesn't fall in the middle range of incomes, so the cutoff point between middle income and low income is somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000. Makes sense, right?

Actually just double checked the numbers: $100,000 is about 3x both the mean and median incomes in this country.

Grungehamster:Whatever libs; the non-partisan Citizens United poll just showed Romney having 8% more support in Missouri than in any other poll done of the state before this, and that is after Obama got his convention bump.

Huh? Can someone draw a graph and show what that range is? I have no farking idea what he meant. So is $0 dollar income still "middle class"?

Didn't say middle class; he said middle income. $100,000 (more than twice the median national household income) doesn't fall in the middle range of incomes, so the cutoff point between middle income and low income is somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000. Makes sense, right?

Actually just double checked the numbers: $100,000 is about 3x both the mean and median incomes in this country.

MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less. So number one, don't reduce- or excuse me, don't raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don't reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today. That's principle one, principle two. Principle three is create incentives for growth, make it easier for businesses to start and to add jobs. And finally, simplify the code, make it easier for people to pay their taxes than the way they have to now.

lots of websites are gonna have to run a correction

Defining "middle Income" as anything less than the top 1.5% is farking stupid.

so is paraphrasing what he said as "The Republican presidential nominee defined it as income of $200,000 to $250,000 a year."

Tell us Skull, do you think $200,000- $2500,000 falls anywhere near middle income?

skullkrusher:Clowns in my Coffee: In before the apologists let him off the hook for "and less."

let him off the hook for what? The fact that he said "and less" means the hook shouldn't have been there in the first place. Granted, he didn't put a lower end of the range on that but that's not really what you're trying to be outraged about, is it?

So he has to define people in the top 2% of income as "middle income" to try to peddle the line that Obama's tax plans will/have raised incomes on "middle income" families according to his definition, with the assumption that it will be repeated without the clarification that he is using a word to mean something no one else would assume it means (unless they assume anything Romney says must be lies or at least deliberately deceptive).

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the film that seems to have sparked all this, the Innocence of Muslims film? Secretary Clinton today said she thought it was disgusting. How would you describe it?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, I haven't seen the film. I don't intend to see it. I you know, I think it's dispiriting sometimes to see some of the awful things people say. And the idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out a negative way is simply inappropriate and wrong. And I wish people wouldn't do it. Of course, we have a First Amendment. And under the First Amendment, people are allowed to do what they feel they want to do. They have the right to do that, but it's not right to do things that are of the nature of what was done by, apparently this film.

I like how Mitt Romney is going to be debating Obama, who was a Con law professor.

MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less. So number one, don't reduce- or excuse me, don't raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don't reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today. That's principle one, principle two. Principle three is create incentives for growth, make it easier for businesses to start and to add jobs. And finally, simplify the code, make it easier for people to pay their taxes than the way they have to now.

lots of websites are gonna have to run a correction

Defining "middle Income" as anything less than the top 1.5% is farking stupid.

so is paraphrasing what he said as "The Republican presidential nominee defined it as income of $200,000 to $250,000 a year."

But it's quite reasonable to read it as between $100K and $200-250K. And that's still wrong.

MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less. So number one, don't reduce- or excuse me, don't raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don't reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today. That's principle one, principle two. Principle three is create incentives for growth, make it easier for businesses to start and to add jobs. And finally, simplify the code, make it easier for people to pay their taxes than the way they have to now.

lots of websites are gonna have to run a correction

Defining "middle Income" as anything less than the top 1.5% is farking stupid.

so is paraphrasing what he said as "The Republican presidential nominee defined it as income of $200,000 to $250,000 a year."

Tell us Skull, do you think $200,000- $2500,000 falls anywhere near middle income?

so you agree that the websites should correct their comments? Because that's what I said that got you all subject changey.

Middle income and middle class are 2 different things. Middle income is a far more mathematically restricted notion. Obviously, in nominal dollars, $200-$250k falls outside of the middle of the income distribution so no, they would not be middle income.

MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less. So number one, don't reduce- or excuse me, don't raise taxes on middle-income people, lower them. Number two, don't reduce the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest. The top 5% will still pay the same share of taxes they pay today. That's principle one, principle two. Principle three is create incentives for growth, make it easier for businesses to start and to add jobs. And finally, simplify the code, make it easier for people to pay their taxes than the way they have to now.

lots of websites are gonna have to run a correction

Defining "middle Income" as anything less than the top 1.5% is farking stupid.

so is paraphrasing what he said as "The Republican presidential nominee defined it as income of $200,000 to $250,000 a year."

Tell us Skull, do you think $200,000- $2500,000 falls anywhere near middle income?

so you agree that the websites should correct their comments? Because that's what I said that got you all subject changey.

Middle income and middle class are 2 different things. Middle income is a far more mathematically restricted notion. Obviously, in nominal dollars, $200-$250k falls outside of the middle of the income distribution so no, they would not be middle income.

But they are middle class? People in the top 2% of earners are middle class in your opinion?

The bottom 20% make between nothing and $18.5k per household.The top 20% make over $92k per household (I am in here).That leaves the middle 60% of American households making between $18.5k and $92k per year.

The way I think of the middle class is a little different.The bottom 40% are our lower class. They make between $0 and $35k.The middle class goes from 41% up to 95%. That represents household incomes from $35k to $167k.The category of 'upper middle class' is occupied from 96%-99%. They make from $167k-$350k.

All of these people still have to work for a living. While the upper middle class are likely to become millionaires over time, they still have jobs or own businesses that they must continue to work at in order to continue their lifestyle.

That leave the top 1%. Incomes over $350k. The executives. Trust fund babies. The truly rich. The ownership class. Unless they are idiots, they should never have financial worries.

Huh? Can someone draw a graph and show what that range is? I have no farking idea what he meant. So is $0 dollar income still "middle class"?

Didn't say middle class; he said middle income. $100,000 (more than twice the median national household income) doesn't fall in the middle range of incomes, so the cutoff point between middle income and low income is somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000. Makes sense, right?

Actually just double checked the numbers: $100,000 is about 3x both the mean and median incomes in this country.

that's median individual income you're using, I think

That's what I get for using wikipedia to check my memory; I thought it was ~45K median, but checked and found something that said 32K for mean and 27K for median back in 2004 (turns out those were "equivalized" between countries). Turns out median is about 45K, with 50K being about the mean household income.

madgonad:All of these people still have to work for a living. While the upper middle class are likely to become millionaires over time, they still have jobs or own businesses that they must continue to work at in order to continue their lifestyle.

People who make between $167-$350k need to work to "continue their lifestyle" while people who make between 0-35k need to work to continue to eat.

Now, which one of these categories can spare some fng change for the tax man?

More_Like_A_Stain:skullkrusher: Middle income and middle class are 2 different things.

Okay. I'll admit to ignorance here, as I've never heard this distinction before. At least not in any description of American society. Educate me, please.

as I said, "middle income" is about the income distribution. "middle class" is a much less well defined lifestyle or standard of living. They are used interchangeably but I think that is inaccurate. A family earning $40k and a family earning $80k obviously fall on different parts of the the national income distribution chart but they could have identical standards of living depending on where they live. That's why I find the distinction important.